Lifetry you can't have been watching the same race as me in 2017, they were running together, a group out of transition pretty much together, Birtwhistle very comfortably sprinted away from Mcelroy towards the end, he certainly wasn't being chased down by Mcelroy. You must be purely looking at the timing recorded which is obviously a typo issue. Mcelroy entered transition pretty much one step behind Birtwhistle but ran out just before, Birtwhistle has a recorded transition time about 8 seconds faster than anyone else on the day, but a run time slower than Mcelroy. Watch the race, neither of these things happened, the timing was obviously mucked up removing time from his transition and adding it to his run. If you start behind someone but finish before then you outran them regardless of what is recorded in numbers.
For 2018 USA obviously tested out a stronger cyclist to try to get well ahead, it just wasn't far enough on the day. You can't roast McDowell but praise mcelroy when in both races the starting point was the same and ending also the same. They just had different middles.